Grain and oilseed/protein traders and purchasing officers from compound feed industry from Eastern Europe gathered in Warsaw, Poland in May for USSEC’s International Trade Risk Management Workshop. While most of the audience represented Poland, there were also customers from the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Serbia.
Jay O’Neil, International Grain Program, Kansas State University, laid the foundation for the training event by presenting about U.S. grain and soy production and the marketing system. Then he explained the relationship between cash markets and futures, trading terminology and definitions, and how to read the futures prices and determine carry versus inverse markets.
Bob Bresnahan, Trilateral Inc., Chicago, introduced the audience to the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) as a clearing house and counter party risk to later move to fundamental analysis and technical analysis. He next focused on where and how to hedge and principals of futures and options trading.
On the second day of the workshop, the customers were given some examples of hedging for traders and producers and end users that allowed them to better understand how to apply what they were learning. Different trading strategies for different market conditions were also explained to them.
Jerzy W. Kosieradzki, USSEC Technical Director – Northeastern Europe, made the audience aware of the importance of sustainable food production to consumers in Western hemisphere and pointed out that U.S. Soy’s production system sets global standard in this respect. He also spoke on the U.S. Soy Sustainability Assurance Protocol (SSAP) certificates that are available to U.S. soybean and soy products importers that do not carry any extra cost to them.
The risk management workshop finished with a round of questions and answers and comments and the students were presented with their certificates of completion.
Eszter Magyari of Cargill-Hungary in Budapest shared that once she had attended a training course on managing risk in international trade organized for Cargill staff, but the USSEC workshop gave her a much deeper and more practical insight into these professional issues. A thank you call from Marek Brzozowski, Bunge-Poland’s commercial manager, whose staff members came back from Warsaw truly thrilled with the quality of know-how they received at the USSEC workshop, was a special reward.